Sapper.dawg
New member
I was lucky enough to draw a KY cow elk tag for the first rifle season this year. This is my story of the hunt.
This started in March of 2014 when I was at Fort Knox for Army Reserve Training. I had noticed several large whitetail deer on the range complex, and was looking on the post outdoor website when I saw a link about hunting elk in Kentucky. This was the first I had ever heard of that, and when I investigated it I put in for the draw that day. I entered for firearm bull and cow, and ended up drawing a firearm cow for the first rifle season DEC 13-19, 2014.
I had never really been interested in going out west to hunt elk, so this opportunity to hunt them less than six hours from my home was welcome indeed. After drawing your tag, you have about two weeks before you have to enter your preference for hunting area. There are five to choose from, and I began the data crunching from the KY Wildlife and Fish website. My research led me to choose the Hazard LEA as my #1 choice, and that is what I drew. My intention was to conduct the hunt as a DIY venture, and that LEA had plenty of varied public land for use.
I immediately began prepping for this venture by doing all the research on elk behavior as possible. I read ebooks, magazines, websites and hunters forums, and watched every outdoors show about elk as possible - everything with a focus on DIY public land hunting. As you can tell, I spent many hours here and watching Randy's shows over the last six months. During this time I also became obsessed with western hunting in general, so looks like that is my next stop. But I digress.
Everything is going along peachy when I received a letter from the KY Wildlife Department notifying me that a large portion of the public land available in the Hazard LEA would no longer be publicly available during the hunt due to an ownership change. Needless to say, panic set in. We were given the option to redraw for an at-large zone, but could not put in for any of the other LEAs.
I doubled my research, and ended up with a referral to a local outfitter. After talking with them, I decided to stay with my original draw and utilize their services.
The week finally arrived, and on Friday morning I began my old-school-Army gear layout to ensure I didn’t forget anything. I did.
I drove the six hours to Hazard and set up shop in the Hampton Inn. I had some panic on the drive up, having been largely a still hunter for whitetail rather than spot and stalk type huning, and stopped at Gander Mountain in Knoxville, TN to buy a weather proof outer layer - I have a great, reasonably priced recommendation for you on this BTW if you are interested. While there I also picked up a large ice chest just in case.
Sleep came tough on Friday night, as I was like a kid on Christmas Eve. I was meeting my guide at 0600, and I was up at 0400 having coffee and getting ready. I was at the meeting location 30 minutes early. We met and struck out for a long day of walking timber. We found lots of day or two-day old sign, but only saw four bulls at last light feeding. It was still a great day in the field.
Day two and we were mobile all day. We ran about 80 miles on a side-by-side ATV scouting and stalking. We found lots of fresh sign this day, but had zero encounters.
Day three started with setting up on a herd of 20-30 at daylight, however they escaped to the timber pretty quickly. I put on a two hour stalk to locate them on their potential bedding area, and was able to track them to a crossing. We spotted them high on a ledge bedded down, so we left them alone for the mid day hours. My guide and I split for a few hours at this point, and I spent some time glassing a likely bedding area:
After glassing this spot for a bit, I thought back to the ebook I read - Jim Demming's DIY Elk Hunting. In it, he talks about how you don’t kill anything at camp during mid-day and discussed a map exercise on where to find likely places elk are bedded. I sat down and pulled my gps unit out and examined the area I was in. I located two likely areas where elk should be at based on the map exercise. I began the stalk with the wind in my face. I found sign, lots of fresh sign, but it was loud. With no rain in the recent past, there leaves were very noisy underfoot. I made it to my first point, and jumped an elk. Here is what I found where the spook happened:
There were several of these in the same area. Maybe blind luck, but I was proud that the preparation I put in had at least paid off with a sighting. I never made it to the second point as it was time to meet back up with my guide for an evening stalk on the bedded elk from the morning. It took over an hour, but I was able to get in general position, but they would not move off the ledge and down to my position. With a front coming in the next day, we figured they would be moving in the morning. On to day four.
Day four was very windy with rain in the forecast. We started the day with walking some private land, and after not finding any fresh sign, decided to go back and find the elk from day three. They were still in the general area high on the mountain, but had moved faces to get out of the wind. At this point, we decided to go for broke and set ourselves at a likely crossing area while someone walked the top of the ridge and attempt to move them off the bed and down the mountain. It worked.
I heard rushing leaves of many hooves coming down the draw I was at. The first animal off the hill was a whitetail doe. She saw me and wheeled to go back up, and I noticed the elk behind her - at least 10. The first one was a LARGE cow again headed right for me. As I was moving to take aim, she stopped broadside about 20 yards and I took the shot. Hit, she took several leaps up the hill and stopped, where I shot her a second time. She hit the ground and was down for the count at this point, this was about 1200.
She was huge! At least 500 lbs, and maybe more. After field dressing, we loaded her up and I headed south to Alabama. I packed her with ice and washed her out good at a car wash, made it home by 2100 and hit the sack. She filled up the bed of my Toyota Tacoma.
The work really started this morning. After recruiting my neighbor to help me roll it out of the back of the truck this morning, I started skinning and quartering her up. After four hours I finally had her in the ice chests. I was also able to harvest a couple nice ivories.
I dropped the hide this afternoon at a local taxidermist to have it soft tanned, looking forward to getting that back. I now have about 200+ lbs of meat iced down to be butchered over the next several days. I am processing it all myself, and have an additional freezer being delivered on Friday morning.
Overall, what a great experience hunting a terrific animal with a great group of guys.
I would be happy to provide anyone recommendations on the lessons learned, gear and guides I used, just shoot me a PM.
Jeff
This started in March of 2014 when I was at Fort Knox for Army Reserve Training. I had noticed several large whitetail deer on the range complex, and was looking on the post outdoor website when I saw a link about hunting elk in Kentucky. This was the first I had ever heard of that, and when I investigated it I put in for the draw that day. I entered for firearm bull and cow, and ended up drawing a firearm cow for the first rifle season DEC 13-19, 2014.
I had never really been interested in going out west to hunt elk, so this opportunity to hunt them less than six hours from my home was welcome indeed. After drawing your tag, you have about two weeks before you have to enter your preference for hunting area. There are five to choose from, and I began the data crunching from the KY Wildlife and Fish website. My research led me to choose the Hazard LEA as my #1 choice, and that is what I drew. My intention was to conduct the hunt as a DIY venture, and that LEA had plenty of varied public land for use.
I immediately began prepping for this venture by doing all the research on elk behavior as possible. I read ebooks, magazines, websites and hunters forums, and watched every outdoors show about elk as possible - everything with a focus on DIY public land hunting. As you can tell, I spent many hours here and watching Randy's shows over the last six months. During this time I also became obsessed with western hunting in general, so looks like that is my next stop. But I digress.
Everything is going along peachy when I received a letter from the KY Wildlife Department notifying me that a large portion of the public land available in the Hazard LEA would no longer be publicly available during the hunt due to an ownership change. Needless to say, panic set in. We were given the option to redraw for an at-large zone, but could not put in for any of the other LEAs.
I doubled my research, and ended up with a referral to a local outfitter. After talking with them, I decided to stay with my original draw and utilize their services.
The week finally arrived, and on Friday morning I began my old-school-Army gear layout to ensure I didn’t forget anything. I did.
I drove the six hours to Hazard and set up shop in the Hampton Inn. I had some panic on the drive up, having been largely a still hunter for whitetail rather than spot and stalk type huning, and stopped at Gander Mountain in Knoxville, TN to buy a weather proof outer layer - I have a great, reasonably priced recommendation for you on this BTW if you are interested. While there I also picked up a large ice chest just in case.
Sleep came tough on Friday night, as I was like a kid on Christmas Eve. I was meeting my guide at 0600, and I was up at 0400 having coffee and getting ready. I was at the meeting location 30 minutes early. We met and struck out for a long day of walking timber. We found lots of day or two-day old sign, but only saw four bulls at last light feeding. It was still a great day in the field.
Day two and we were mobile all day. We ran about 80 miles on a side-by-side ATV scouting and stalking. We found lots of fresh sign this day, but had zero encounters.
Day three started with setting up on a herd of 20-30 at daylight, however they escaped to the timber pretty quickly. I put on a two hour stalk to locate them on their potential bedding area, and was able to track them to a crossing. We spotted them high on a ledge bedded down, so we left them alone for the mid day hours. My guide and I split for a few hours at this point, and I spent some time glassing a likely bedding area:
After glassing this spot for a bit, I thought back to the ebook I read - Jim Demming's DIY Elk Hunting. In it, he talks about how you don’t kill anything at camp during mid-day and discussed a map exercise on where to find likely places elk are bedded. I sat down and pulled my gps unit out and examined the area I was in. I located two likely areas where elk should be at based on the map exercise. I began the stalk with the wind in my face. I found sign, lots of fresh sign, but it was loud. With no rain in the recent past, there leaves were very noisy underfoot. I made it to my first point, and jumped an elk. Here is what I found where the spook happened:
There were several of these in the same area. Maybe blind luck, but I was proud that the preparation I put in had at least paid off with a sighting. I never made it to the second point as it was time to meet back up with my guide for an evening stalk on the bedded elk from the morning. It took over an hour, but I was able to get in general position, but they would not move off the ledge and down to my position. With a front coming in the next day, we figured they would be moving in the morning. On to day four.
Day four was very windy with rain in the forecast. We started the day with walking some private land, and after not finding any fresh sign, decided to go back and find the elk from day three. They were still in the general area high on the mountain, but had moved faces to get out of the wind. At this point, we decided to go for broke and set ourselves at a likely crossing area while someone walked the top of the ridge and attempt to move them off the bed and down the mountain. It worked.
I heard rushing leaves of many hooves coming down the draw I was at. The first animal off the hill was a whitetail doe. She saw me and wheeled to go back up, and I noticed the elk behind her - at least 10. The first one was a LARGE cow again headed right for me. As I was moving to take aim, she stopped broadside about 20 yards and I took the shot. Hit, she took several leaps up the hill and stopped, where I shot her a second time. She hit the ground and was down for the count at this point, this was about 1200.
She was huge! At least 500 lbs, and maybe more. After field dressing, we loaded her up and I headed south to Alabama. I packed her with ice and washed her out good at a car wash, made it home by 2100 and hit the sack. She filled up the bed of my Toyota Tacoma.
The work really started this morning. After recruiting my neighbor to help me roll it out of the back of the truck this morning, I started skinning and quartering her up. After four hours I finally had her in the ice chests. I was also able to harvest a couple nice ivories.
I dropped the hide this afternoon at a local taxidermist to have it soft tanned, looking forward to getting that back. I now have about 200+ lbs of meat iced down to be butchered over the next several days. I am processing it all myself, and have an additional freezer being delivered on Friday morning.
Overall, what a great experience hunting a terrific animal with a great group of guys.
I would be happy to provide anyone recommendations on the lessons learned, gear and guides I used, just shoot me a PM.
Jeff
